A funeral was held today in Ramallah for Fatima Hjeiji, a 16-year-old Palestinian girl who was sprayed with approximately 20 bullets on May 7 after allegedly attempting to stab Israeli policemen.
[ Ed. note – What is becoming increasingly clear is that so enslaved to AIPAC are US Congress members, they will go on supporting Israel no matter how many Palestinian youths are shot down by Israeli forces. Described as a poet as well as a gifted math student, Fatima Hjeiji, 16, was shot multiple times by Israeli police on the evening of Sunday, May 7. The Israelis allege she attempted to carry out a stabbing attack. Her funeral was held today.
Hjeiji reportedly was the seventh Palestinian child to be killed this year, yet if the number were 70, or even 700, it would make no difference. Congress members like Tammy Duckworth in the Senate, or Ed Royce in the House, would most likely go on expressing their undying devotion to the Jewish state.
You can go here to see the top congressional beneficiaries of contributions from pro-Israel PACs. Duckworth’s and Royce’s names are at the top of the list. Yet even without campaign contributions rolling in, support for Israel in Congress likely would continue, for the plain simple truth is that every single member of that body is acutely aware of one thing: they either support Israel or they can expect massive amounts of money to be funneled to their opponents the next time they come up for reelection. Additionally, they can also probably expect attacks and smears in the media or even investigations or prosecutions on hypothetical trumped up corruption charges. When you’re dealing with an entity as powerful in America as the pro-Israel lobby, such things as these, and even more, would not be out of the question. If you’re a member of Congress and you want to keep your job, you support Israel. Period.
All this means Israel can attack Gaza anytime it likes, or murder children in the West Bank as its soldiers feel the urge, and US aid will continue to flow in. No trigger-happy Israeli soldier will be arrested unless the incident happens to be caught on video, and the only thing then will be a show trial and an acquittal. And of course it goes without mentioning–no war crimes tribunal will be soon be convening in The Hague either, and for the same reasons, while Duckworth and Royce will merrily go on extolling Israel’s “right to defend itself.” The horrible reality is that the bodies of these children will continue to pile up as the governments of the world look away.
According to the article below from Ma’an News, hundreds of people marched in Fatima’s funeral procession today. The report also includes the information that last year, 2016, was the deadliest year in a decade for Palestinian children, with a total of 32 being killed. Of that number, 24 were accused of carrying out attacks.
The second article, from Mondoweiss, provides quotes from Fatima’s family members, including her mother, and also mentions that the Israeli rights group B’Tselem has condemned the shooting, the group commenting that Fatima approached police at the site but that she had “stopped several meters away.” Furthermore, the officers were “standing behind a metal barrier, were armed and wearing protective gear” at the time, and the shooting was totally unwarranted, for the girl posed no threat to them. according to the report.
One other thing about Fatima you will discover. She was, in the words of her grandfather, a young girl with “a very strong personality–very strong. She was a strong patriot and she was always talking about freedom for Palestine.” Fighting for the freedom of her country from occupation, in other words. This is what Fatima was all about, along with, apparently, numerous others like her. Only in the circumstance of a lobby as powerful as AIPAC could such children, in any country in the world, ever be branded as “terrorists.” ]
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Hundreds March in Funeral of 16-Year-Old Palestinian Girl Killed By Israeli Forces
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — Hundreds of Palestinians from the village of Qarawat Bani Zeid, located in the central occupied West Bank district of Ramallah, marched in the funeral procession for 16-year-old Fatima Hjeiji, who was shot and killed by Israeli forces earlier in the month under disputed circumstances.
Hjeiji’s body was transferred from Israeli authorities on Tuesday evening to the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences in Jerusalem’s Abu Dis University, where the body was autopsied.
Following the autopsy, the teen’s body was transferred to the Palestinian Medical Complex in Ramallah, where her body was prepared for burial and wrapped in a Palestinian flag, in accordance with Hjeiji’s wishes, which she outlined in a goodbye letter that she left behind for her family.
The funeral set off from the medical complex, where Hjeiji’s body was carried in an ambulance, and eventually offloaded onto the shoulder of mourners, who carried her body towards a hunger-strike solidarity tent in Ramallah’s Yasser Arafat Square.Hundreds marched in the procession, through Ramallah city’s streets, shouting slogans that against Israeli forces, Israeli settler, and the ongoing security coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Mourners then carried on to Hjeiji’s home in Qarawat Bani Zeid village for final farewells, and then to the village’s mosque for funeral prayer before laying the teen to rest in the village’s cemetery.Dalia Hjeiji, Fatima’s mother, told Ma’an that her daughter’s “wish to become a martyr was answered by God,” while the girl’s father, Afef Hajiji, highlighted that his daughter was shot 21 times, “confirming that Israeli forces deliberately execute Palestinian children.”
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Family of 16-Year-Old Palestinian Girl Remembers Bright Young Math Student, Poet, and Politically Charged Youth
By Sheren Khalel
Qarawat Bani Zeid, occupied West Bank — The day Fatima Hjeiji, 16, was shot dead by Israeli forces was the fifth day of her hunger strike in solidarity with an estimated 1,600 Palestinian prisoners on strike, her family told Mondoweiss.
The 16-year-old, a poet, activist and stellar math student, approached a group of five Israeli forces in Jerusalem on Sunday allegedly carrying a kitchen knife with the intention of attacking the fully armed border police officers.
The officers, apparently seeing the situation as a threat to life, lifted their guns and shot the teenage girl between 10 to 20 times. Witness at the scene reported that as the girl lay motionless on the ground Israeli forces continued shooting.
The 16-year-old girl “approached Israeli police and border guards stationed at the site, drew a knife, and tried to attack them while calling out ‘Allah Akbar’ in an attempt to hurt Israeli forces, who determinedly and professionally neutralized her,” a police spokesperson told Ma’an News Agency.
After investigating the incident, Israeli rights group B’Tselem on Wednesday condemned the killing, stating that Fatima “who stopped several meters away” from officers, “did not pose a danger” to police.
“The police – who were standing behind a metal barrier, were armed and wearing protective gear – could have subdued Hjeiji and taken her into custody without resorting to gunfire, certainly not lethal gunfire,” the group said in a statement. “Instead, they shot and killed a 16-year-old girl who, as stated, posed no danger to them.”
The incident was not the first time Fatima had been accused of attempting a knifing on Israeli forces. She was detained at the Zaatari checkpoint in Nablus almost exactly one year previously after Israeli forces found a knife in her possession, her family explained. Fatima was held in Israeli detention for ten days, during which Fatima’s mother, Dareen Hjeiji, said she was physically and psychologically tortured.
“After the torture she experienced in prison she became even more political, and became very concerned with prisoners rights,” her mother told Mondoweiss, sitting in a small room of a relative’s family home, surrounded by other mourning relatives.
Bloodshot eyes filled the room, as women, fighting back tears, took turns sharing small bits of information about the slain teenager.
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